The wife of former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara was notified on Friday of suspicion of having provided false evidence in the murder case of which her husband is suspected.
“With her false testimony, the wife tried to help her husband avoid responsibility for unlawfully depriving another person of his life. The actions of the person are qualified under Part 2 of Article 384 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (obviously false testimony of a witness),” the press service of the Kyiv region’s PGO said.
The names of the ex-minister and his wife were not mentioned.
According to the report, investigators established that the ex-minister’s wife, whom the investigator had warned about criminal liability for knowingly false testimonies, was questioned as a witness. She deliberately provided law enforcement officers with inaccurate information about the facts and circumstances of her husband’s criminal offense under Part 1 of Article 115 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code (intentional homicide, that is, intentional unlawful causing death to another person).
Subsequently, when the court considered the petition for the suspect to take a preventive measure in the form of detention, the woman, being warned by the judge of criminal liability for knowingly false testimony, during the interrogation of her husband as a witness, provided the court with the same false information.
As reported, on February 21, special line 102 received a message from a resident of the village of Chaika in the Kyiv region that a man who had come to visit from the capital committed suicide in the house. Later, information appeared that Serhiy Starytsky was shot dead in Kozhara’s house. The preliminary version of death is suicide. The shot was fired from a Jericho 941 pistol registered with the former foreign minister.
Starytsky co-founded Atlantic Group in 1992. The professional asset of Starytsky is under management of the Inter TV channel and the Department of International Relations of the Ukrainian State Television and Radio Company.
On February 24, the National Police reported that the death of businessman Starytsky was being investigated as a premeditated murder. It is noted that preliminary law enforcement officers established the presence in the house of three people: spouses and their guest. All three drank alcohol. According to the woman, she was in another room when the guest shot himself in the head with a gun from the owner.
On March 25, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said Kozhara was detained on suspicion of the intentional murder of Starytsky.
On March 26, the Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv remanded Kozhara to 60-day pretrial detention, setting bail in the amount of Hr 14,830,400.
